Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp appear to be experiencing issues as thousands report outages

• Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp appear to be experiencing outages for many users.
• Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp.
• DownDetector reports show the issues started just after 5 p.m. ET.

Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp appear to be experiencing outages that are preventing many users from accessing the platforms.

Reports on DownDetector surged after 5 p.m. ET, with users of all three social media platforms noticing outages. A total of 23 reports on DownDetector were issued for Facebook at 5:08 p.m., two reports under its baseline of 25, but that number jumped to 18,120 at 5:23 p.m., indicating the issue wasn't isolated.

Facebook owns both Instagram and WhatsApp.

"Sorry, something went wrong," read the generic Facebook error message seen by many. "We're working on getting this fixed as soon as we can."

Instagram and WhatsApp show a similar trend on the outage-tracking website. A total of 49 Instagram reports at 5:04 p.m. ET, 18 reports over its baseline of 31, quickly became 10,330 at 5:19 p.m. ET.

Instagram has resorted to other platforms in order to address user concerns. The photo-sharing platform confirmed the outages in a tweet saying, "Is your #instagramdown? We know some people are having issues right now. We're working on it and hope to have everything running smoothly as soon as possible."

WhatsApp saw four Downdetector reports at 5:05 p.m., which jumped to 69 at 5:20 p.m. and then to 424 at 5:35 p.m. The messaging service has a baseline of three reports.

Spokespeople for Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on the outage reports.